Kent, hopesthat they will believe what he says

Kent, hopesthat they will believe what he says

Kent, A Few Miles Herbert George Wells was born in 1866 in Bromley, Kent, a few miles fromLondon, the son of a house-maid and gardener. Wells died in 1946, a wealthy andfamous author, having seen science fiction become a recognized literary form andhaving seen the world realize some of science fiction’s fondest dreams and worstfears. Wells mother attempted to find him a safe occupation as a draper orchemist. Wells had a quick mind and a good memory that enabled him to pass subjects byexamination and win a scholarship to the Normal School of Science, where hestayed for three years and, most importantly, was exposed to biology under thefamous Thomas H. Huxley.

Wells went into teaching and writing text books andarticles for the magazines that were of that time. In 1894 he began to writescience-fiction stories. -James GunnWells vision of the future, with its troglodytic Morlocks descended from theworking class of his day and the pretty but helpless Eloi devolved from theleisure class, may seem antiquated political theory. It emerged out of theconcern for social justice that drew Wells to the Fabian Society and inspiredmuch of his later writing, but time has not dimmed the fascination of thesituation and the horror of the imagery. The Time Machine brought these concerns into his fiction. It, too,involved the future, but a future imagined with greater realism and in greaterdetail than earlier stories of the future. It also introduced, for the firsttime in fiction, the notion of a machine for traveling in time.

In this novel the Time Machine by H. G. Wells, starts with the time travelertrying to persuade his guest’s the theory of the fourth dimension and even theinvention.

He tries to explain the fourth dimension before he shows them thetime machine so they don’t think of him as a magician. H. G. Wells uses detailsabout the fourth dimension to teach the reader the theory about it to captureyour attention. Also Wells character the time traveler says “Scientific people”,”Know very well that time is only a kind of space”.

In this quote he is clearlyusing persuasion tactics. He tries to attack there consious by saying that,scientific people know that this is only a kind of space. He says this in hopesthat they will believe what he says just because other intelligent peoplebelieve the theory. This is a very primitive but still an effective way to tryto persuade people. The idea is “because many people believe it, so it must betrue”. The people he is trying to persuade are of 19th century thinking and wellto do people and they are competitive amongst other well to do people so ifother rich and intelligent people believe this fourth dimension theory so thetime traveler hopes this will motivate them to learn about it.

The Characters in the book Time Machine are The time traveler, Filby, thepsychologist, and the provincial mayor. Later the silent man and the editor comein to play. Filby is described as “an argumentative person with red hair”. Hehas another label that Wells puts on him; he call him the “young man”. Thepsychologist also has another label; he is “the medical man”. The time traveleris described briefly when the group of intellects head down the corridor to thelaboratory.

He uses “his queer broad head in silhouette.” When the arrive at themachine’s location it is described as “Parts were made of nickel, parts ofivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal”. He probablychose these characters as witnesses because they hold higher education andpeople would believe them from there reputations. The psychologist would bebeneficiary in convincing the other that its not a hoax because he is aware ofhuman behavior. The provincial mayor is also an intelligent man and the peopleelected him so if he is to believe that this works then many people would followhim. Filby is another character but never talks about his standing in society itcould be his friend because he did wink at the time traveler or maybe he is notbecause he disputed the time traveler’s time machine in his face and behind hisback.

H. G. Wells uses two other characters that come to dinner to meet the timetraveler. The main character comes back from the future. The medical doctor andthe provincial mayor are accompanied by the editor or known as the journalist,and the silent man. The editor uses three names to describe his guest’s; “Blank,Dash, and Chose.

” These names are mentioned but they are never given adesignation so there is no way to figure out which one is the mayor,psychologist, or the silent man. The editor shows some disbelief but goes aheadlistening to the story and is a little eager. He may just wanted to get a storyto report in the newspaper that someone has claimed to have gone to the futureand back. They all agree that the time traveler can tell his story withoutinterruption because he is wary with exhaustion and has no tolerance to answerquestions or be accused as a liar or a quack. He begins his story by telling that he has “lived eight days…

such days asno human has ever lived before!”. Next he is in his laboratory working on histime machine trying to complete it before Friday. He completes it that morning.He is delayed to the ivory rod that was an inch to long so he had to get itremade.

The time traveler begins his journey to the future. At first he didn’tknow if anything was happening yet for this machine was untested. “For a momentI suspected that my intellect had tricked me.” “Then I noted the clock. A momentbefore, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearlyhalf-past three!”.

This part in the novel is his most detailed explanation tocapture the readers imagination and to fully support the illusion of timetravel. He tells of many details such as his maid Mrs. Watched came in thelaboratory and moved like a rocket around it.

He explains the time travelingexperience as a since of falling and the speed is so great that it feels likeany minute you will smash into another object. All these details suggest thatits not a comfortable ride especially when he said “I remarked indeed a clumsyswaying of the machine, for which I was unable to account.” There is evidencethat the laboratory and the time traveler’s house was torn down when he saw thebrief picture of scaffolding. A snail went across the room at a speed that hiseyes could not keep up with.

After his house was gone he was in the open air andsaw huge buildings erect themselves all around him. Wells was right in hisassumption about these buildings because skyscrapers do exist in our time. Hesaw all the vegetation grow and die. The moon ran its cycles and the sun shotacross the sky so fast that it was hurting the time traveler’s eyes. The timetraveler witness the season’s changing from snow to spring in a continuos cycle.He thought of stopping but he was afraid of jamming his molecules and theobject’s molecules that occupied that space at that particular time. Here hegoes back to science and with some added element of chemistry.

The maincharacter explains that if his time machine occupied the same space at the sametime as another object then the molecules would fuse together causing a chemicalreaction and the ending result would be an explosion. Even with this threat hetakes the risk out of curiosity building some suspense in the book. He stops andis flung from his machine and is met by a thunderstorm. This is realistic inthis book because in the UK it rains a lot so there is a good chance that hewould encounter rain.

After the Thunder storm is gone he hears voices in thebushes. A person emerges from the brush and is described as “a slightcreature-perhaps four feet high-clad in a purple tunic, girdled at the waistwith a leather belt. Sandals or buskins-I could not clearly distinguishwhich-were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees, and his head was bare.”He was under the impression that there will frail creature and not veryintelligent and he was correct. His assumption of intelligence was proven whenone of the human looking creatures asked him is he had come from the sun ridingon a thunderstorm.

Also when he gave them a threatening motion towards them whenthey got around the machine they retreated immediately. His assumption offrailty was proven after this fact. He noticed that a lot of them looked a likewhich he thought was odd.

They probably looked like this because they have beenbred and raised like cattle for many years so they are all probably sharing alot of the same genes. The thing Wells did not know is that you can not do thatto mammals especially humans; breeding so closely using the same genes it causesmammals to become sterile and ….

.extinct. He only had 19th century knowledge so hewas probably not aware of this or he didn’t care because most people wereprobably not aware of the study of genetics. They didn’t show much interest inlearning they would run around and play with toys and lose interest in a neverending cycle like a child. He didn’t know there language but it was obviouslyderived from the English because one of the Eli’s asked him if he had come fromthe sun and he understood but some of the other things that the Eli were sayingdidn’t make sense to the time traveler. He saw the white sphinx and describe itas having a silver tree at its shoulder and the sphinx was made of marble andthe wings of it were spread out. A pedestal that the time traveler described wasmad of bronze and “was thick with verdigris.

” The building that the Eloi residedat had according to the time traveler had huge doors “and was all togethercolossal dimensions”. The entrance had carvings of Phoenicians. After seeing asphinx and Phoenician carvings and how primitive the people were he had doubtsthat he was in the future. This proved by when the time traveler is rememberingthe date on his dials that read 802, 701 A.D. He noticed the Eli diet as beencomposed of mainly fruit and vegetables. He noticed there was no signs ofeconomic or cultural struggle in the surroundings so the time traveler has someknowledge of archeology and maybe a bit of a historian, he even said that hewould like to witness the accepted account of the battle of Hastings.

Also whenthe time traveler looks at the countryside he says to himself “Communism, I saidto myself”. This shows that H. G.

Wells know of Marxism Communism but it doesnot show if he is a supporter or against it. At first he thought this societywas man’s triumph that they live in peace but he learns later that the Eloi arebeing bred fattened up and eaten by the ant like people the Morlocks. Later the main character returned to check on his time machine and to hissurprise it was gone. He began to panic, even when he fell down and hit his facewhich produced a trickling of blood didn’t even pause. At this point the timetraveler is over stressed and bent on getting his time machine back. He nolonger cares to learn about the Eloi; his priority has changed. H.

G. Wells usesrealistic thought process of people when they are faced with problems. The timetraveler is pacing and his conscious is talking to itself trying to calm downand come up with solutions and answers. After this event he sees Weena an adult Eloi girl swimming in a stream. Shegets a cramp and begins to drown and the other Eloi didn’t even make an effortto save her. The time traveler saves her life and they become very close. Thesleep outside and she shows an uncomfortable behavior as well as the other Eloiabout the dark.

The Eloi wouldn’t sleep alone or go out at dark. The time traveler resorts back to more theories about the hotter climate ofthe region. He thinks that the planets are closer to the sun now or that aplanet has smashed into the sun and given it renewed energy. He was hiding fromthe heat in a building when he found a gallery of history. It contained fossils,machines, weapons, chemicals, and idles from every culture Greek, Phoenician andeven English ones.

He found the tunnels that looked like half pillars kind of like ant wholes.The time traveler saw one of the Morlocks and described it as having “a dullwhite, and had strange large greyish-red eyes; also that there was flaxen hairon its head and down its back”. He later described them as “mechanical servantsfor the Eli” and he hated them and wanted to murder them even though they werethe descendants of the human race. They were carnivorous and preyed upon theEloi.

He goes back to the gallery and Weena accompanies him everywhere he goes.He finds some matches and he breaks a lever off an ancient machine serving as amace to smash the Morlocks soft bodies. He found some camphor which is like acandle wax. He left the gallery at night fall and started fires on purpose toblind the creatures but he had difficulties starting vegetation on fire.

TheMorlocks were extremely sensitive to the light. The attacked him and he beatthem with his mace. They were very weak individually but strong in numbers. Thefires calm down and became dark again then they grabbed him and were biting athis neck. He jumped up and did some real strenuous fighting that occurs whenpeople are in the middle of combat and they experience a rush of anger.

Thefires started back up and the Morlocks swayed to and fro in agony. They weremaking moaning sounds to each other. He chose not to kill any of them while theywere at his mercy. He sleeps awhile and in the morning he heads down to thewhite sphinx.

To his surprise he sees that the doors are open and the timemachine is visible. Obviously it is a trap for the time traveler. He proceeds inthe doors even though he suspects a trap.

As soon as he gets on the time machinethe doors closed. The Morlocks laugh out loud thinking that he is trapped. Thetime traveler makes an attempt to lite the match but it only lites on the matchbox.

He defeats one of the Morlocks and gets on his time machine and pushes thelever forward in a panic. Then he goes hurling forward in time. He is on thetime machine in an awkward position. He stops and when he does he is on a beachand two large crustaceans try to eat him so he accelerates into the future 30million years or more and the sun grows bigger and more dull. Then the worldbecomes dark and the air is difficult to breathe. When he thought life wasextinct he sees a life form swimming in the water “the size of a football”.

Hethen returns to his laboratory but in a different location because of theMorlocks tampering with its location in the future. The editor and the medical doctor don’t believe his fantastic story even foran instant. The medical doctor can’t recognize the species of flower that thetime traveler had in his pockets but that didn’t change his mind at one bit. Thenarrator even said that “The serious people who took him seriously never feltquite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting theirreputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with egg-shellchina.

The editor called his story a “gaudy story”. The narrator comes back tofind the time traveler and sees him carrying a camera to his laboratory. Heheads to the laboratory as a result of clinking and thud sounds. He enters thelab and witnesses just a flash of the time machine and the time traveler. Thenwith a whirl of wind and dust the time traveler disappeared. I enjoyed this book but I can’t believe how the time traveler acted being alogical and scientific man.

Like when he went the future he encountered a newkind of people and they led him to a building where they reside. He just lefthis time machine behind; he could have had those people help him take it back towhere they were staying. Also he should have put some wheels on it so it couldbe transported easier and also a floatation device encase he ended up in water.Also he should of had Weena stay with the others, Im sure she was hampering hisattempts in combat with the Morlocks. Also instead of causing terrible uselessdamage to the environment he should have laid siege to the pillars that theMorlocks used to exit out of. He should have set heavy objects on top of themand started fires around them at night time. They would die of lack of oxygen orhunger and the hunger would force them out of the holes into the fire or theywould eat each other.

This would result in diminishing there numbers and makingthem to weak to resist a confrontation. This book had a lot of science elements to it such as the climate change,fourth dimension, chemical reaction, and some of Darwin’s theories. There aresome things that are not true about this story that I want to point out. Whenthe time traveler goes 30 million years in the future from his beach location hedescribe after the Morlock scene.

He would not end up on the beach because ofcontinental drifting when the earth rotates. The continents move an inch a yearthat 30 million inches! He would be in the ocean and sinking fast so if he didbut the lever back the ocean would change the space he was occupying and hewould be stuck in the ground when came back probably resulting in an explosion.Also when the earth became darker only after 30 million years. The sun hasapproximately 5.5 billion years left before it goes super nova. Then it willbecome a red giant and be extremely big as wells described in the book.

So Wellswas not informed of all the facts but still, this book was interesting andentertaining.